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Not quite yet. It was more of a preemptive question. My neighbor said she couldn't handle living right next to this beautiful house because it would make her jealous all the time. Our house is a buffer between the new house, so she doesn't have to stare at it all day and feel bad. That got me thinking about how many other people would also resent living next to a house that is WAY nicer than their own. People are insecure in a lot of ways. Keeping up with the Joneses and all that.
Besides that, I think they will have a hell of a time convincing people with 400k budgets to live in an older blue collar neighborhood where their house sticks out like a sore thumb. I guess I was just thinking out loud and wanted some opinions. I've never had the income to facilitate a 400k home, but for the most part I assume wealthy people prefer to live in nice neighborhoods away from all the plebs. The house next door is different since they are building it their way, but finding someone willing to fork out 400k to live with lower - middle class folks could be a hard sell. I think we will both have a hard time selling.
That is just strange. I live in a tiny city in the middle of a huge metropolitan area. Almost all of the homes were built in 1950, when the city was incorporated. Through the years, some were fixed up by new owners, some were replaced with slightly larger and much nicer homes, and some were abandoned and fell apart.
About a year ago one of those abandoned homes was leveled, and a HUGE (6,000 sf at least) home was erected, with a pool, rock slide, outdoor kitchen, giant covered patio and landscaped yard. You could see in to the yard until they put a beautiful stone fence around the entire property. I drive by the house every day on the way to work, and I've never once felt jealous. I have no idea the circumstances: They inherited the property, sold their home in another state and built their dream home? They won the lottery? They own one of the new businesses nearby and the CEO wants to live close to work? I just figure they know how awesome our little city is, have the money to build a nice home, and did it. If they sold it today, it's worth at least $750,000. And I'm sure someone would buy it.
Not quite yet. It was more of a preemptive question. My neighbor said she couldn't handle living right next to this beautiful house because it would make her jealous all the time. Our house is a buffer between the new house, so she doesn't have to stare at it all day and feel bad. That got me thinking about how many other people would also resent living next to a house that is WAY nicer than their own. People are insecure in a lot of ways. Keeping up with the Joneses and all that.
Besides that, I think they will have a hell of a time convincing people with 400k budgets to live in an older blue collar neighborhood where their house sticks out like a sore thumb. I guess I was just thinking out loud and wanted some opinions. I've never had the income to facilitate a 400k home, but for the most part I assume wealthy people prefer to live in nice neighborhoods away from all the plebs. The house next door is different since they are building it their way, but finding someone willing to fork out 400k to live with lower - middle class folks could be a hard sell. I think we will both have a hard time selling.
Maybe they are also blue collar and planning on living in their dream home forever. In my state we have lots of blue collar workers making 6 figure incomes.
At least give them a chance, they might be real down to earth folks.
As far as resale, you house is going to be worth more, and unfortunately your property taxes will reflect that.
As far as resale, you house is going to be worth more, and unfortunately your property taxes will reflect that.
I've run into this in other States... thankfully, it can't happen in California... makes no matter if/what the neighbors do... it will not affect my property taxes since my taxes are based on what I paid for my home... not what someone else paid for theirs...
Last edited by Ultrarunner; 06-20-2015 at 01:09 PM..
Location: Stuck on the East Coast, hoping to head West
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I live on what a small part of what used to be a very large farm. As the farm was sectioned and sold, neighborhoods sprang up. In my neighborhood, the original houses were put on the first two streets. I live on one of those streets. These houses are only about 1800 square feet. All around us, they have built up houses that get progressively larger and some are massive (to me, anyway) 3 and even 4 story houses. When these people came, they wanted better stuff and had the money to get it: think pools, tennis, walking trails, etc. Definitely improved my neighborhood. With all of that, my sleepy little town now has tons of restaurant & shopping. Heck, we even got a new elementary school AND re-redistricting into a better high school. I love the changes!
The original houses are now being marketed as affordable alternatives to the mcmansions. Sellers in my neighborhood play up the fact that you can afford to buy a single family home in this awesome neighborhood and take advantage of the amenities for a fraction of the cost of the nearby mcmansions. Interestingly, there is a huge market for smaller houses right now.
Overall, I think the nice house next door is definitely a good thing. The thinking will be that if someone put that much money into your neighborhood, it must be worth it. Just my opinion, though.
The neighbor is really taking more of a risk; that house is out of place in your neighborhood and might be hard to sell. Unless the neighborhood is moving upscale, in which case you could do well when you sell to someone who will gut renovate or rebuild.
This is my thought as well. We bought the biggest house, loved the area and figured we'd never move. Of course this wasn't the case and had a hard time selling. Our neighbor next door, smaller outdated house sold quickly.
All the homes around here are built on concrete slabs so I am not familiar with any new construction that would be on a raised foundation. There are homes built from back in the 1940's that were on a raised foundation in this area. Didn't really think about how homes may be built somewhere else. LOL
Many homes here are slab on grade... even homes pushing a million dollars.
Most new construction uses perimeter foundation which leaves about 24" clear in the crawl space...
So the slab built homes have a crawl space? That is something I wish we had. I would love to replace the drain line under the house and need to saw cut the concrete to do that. Would love to "dig out" a crawl space though. LOL
No... slab on grade with minimal post war construction... one area where I have done a lot of work the 1200 square foot homes were built on large lots and sold for $8,000 when they were new in 1948.
Most have added on and doubled the size... still plenty of room and currently are selling in the 800k
range 67 years later!
I ended up running new gas and water lines in the attic... just not possible with the slab and saw cutting was not an option... thankfully, I was able to use all the original Copper DWV underground lines.
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